Reading Project

The Day of the Jackal

Frederick Forsyth

The legendary assassination thriller . . .

Reviewer: Toriaz

1963. An anonymous Englishman is hired by the Operations Chief of French terrorist organisation O.A.S. to murder the French president, General Charles de Gaulle. A failed attempt in the previous year means the target will be nearly impossible to reach. Only one man could do the job: an assassin of legendary talent known only as The Jackal.

This remorseless and deadly killer must be stopped. But he is a man without a name, without an identity; a lethal spectre.

Reading Progress

59% Complete

David Copperfield

Charles Dickens

Dickens’ ‘favourite child’ . . .

Reviewer: bikerbuddy

David Copperfield is the story of a young man’s adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among the people he encounters are his tyrannical stepfather, Mr Murdstone; his brilliant, but ultimately unworthy school-friend James Steerforth; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble, yet treacherous Uriah Heep; frivolous, enchanting Dora Spenlow; and the impecunious Wilkins Micawber. In David Copperfield Dickens drew on his own experiences to create one of his best-loved works.

Reading Progress

15% Complete

Call for the Dead

John le Carré

The novel that introduces George Smiley . . .

Reviewer: bikerbuddy

An anonymous letter had accused Foreign Office man Samuel Fennan of being a communist. George Smiley, assigned by the Secret Service to vet Fennan, had assured him he had nothing to fear. No one believed this nonsense. But clearly something had rattled Fennan, for a day after the interview he killed himself. Smiley is told by his angry superiors to fix this mess. The last thing anyone wants right now is a scandal. It is immediately obvious to Smiley, however, that the suicide story doesn't make sense.

Piece by piece he uncovers a conspiracy - one originating in East Germany and led by a wartime ally of Smiley. To expose it, he must turn a former friend into a deadly enemy...

Reading Progress

51% Complete

The Constant Gardener

John le Carré

A husband's personal odyssey to find justice . . .

Reviewer: Umbritzer

Tessa Quayle has been horribly murdered on the shores of Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya, the birthplace of mankind. Her putative African lover, a doctor with one of the aid agencies, has disappeared.

Her husband, Justin, a career diplomat and amateur gardener at the British High Commission in Nairobi, sets out on a personal odyssey in pursuit of the killers and their motive. His quest takes him to the Foreign Office in London, across Europe and Canada and back to Africa, to the depths of South Sudan, and finally to the very spot where Tessa died.

Reading Progress

5% Complete

The Booker Prize

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With this project we have a long-term commitment to read and review all Booker Prize winners since 1969.

The Booker Prize winner for 2024 is Orbital by Samantha Harvey.

‘Samantha Harvey’s compact yet beautifully expansive novel invites us to observe Earth’s splendour from the drifting perspective of six astronauts aboard the International Space Station as they navigate bereavement, loneliness and mission fatigue. Moving from the claustrophobia of their cabins to the infinitude of space, from their wide-ranging memories to their careful attention to their tasks, from searching metaphysical inquiry to the spectacle of the natural world, Orbital offers us a love letter to our planet as well as a deeply moving acknowledgement of the individual and collective value of every human life.’

- thebookerprizes.com

The 2024 Shortlist for the Booker Prize also included:

Held Anne Michaels (Canadian)
Creation Lake Rachel Kushner (American)
James Percival Everett (American)
The Safekeep Yael van der Wouden (Dutch)
Stone Yard Devotional Charlotte Wood (Australian)

Project Progress

37 of 61 Booker winners reviewed

View the Booker Prize Winners and those we have reviewed by clicking here.

The International Booker Prize

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The Booker Project also involves a long-term commitment to read and review all International Booker Prize winners since 2016.

The International Booker Prize winner for 2024 is Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck.

‘In luminous prose, Jenny Erpenbeck exposes the complexity of a relationship between a young student and a much older writer, tracking the daily tensions and reversals that mark their intimacy, staying close to the apartments, cafés, and city streets, workplaces and foods of East Berlin. It starts with love and passion, but it’s at least as much about power, art and culture. The self-absorption of the lovers, their descent into a destructive vortex, remains connected to the larger history of East Germany during this period, often meeting history at odd angles.’

- thebookerprizes.com

The 2024 Shortlist for the International Booker Prize also included:

Not a River by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott from Spanish
Mater 2-10 by Hwang Sok-yong, translated by Sora Kim-RussellYoung and Jae Josephine Bae from Korean
What I'd Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma, translated by Sarah Timmer Harvey from Dutch
Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior, translated by Johnny Lorenz from Portuguese
The Details by Ia Genberg, translated by Kira Josefsson from Swedish

Project Progress

8 of 9 International Booker winners reviewed

In the long term, we hope to review all the Booker Prize winners.

Homer - The Iliad

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This project is based around a reading of Homer's The Iliad. Book by book, we provide summaries and provide analyse of aspects specific to each. Each book has a dedicated page which includes art inspired by moments from this epic poem.

Long regarded as one of the pinnacles of Western literature, The Iliad tells the story of the Trojan War in its final days, as Achilles, the supreme Grecian warrior, withdraws from the conflict over a disagreement with Agamemnon.

The ancient Greeks regarded this epic poem as a representation of real history, and in the 19^th century the Homer enthusiast and amateur archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann, excavated what is now believed to be the site of the ancient conflict.

For this special reading project I plan to eventually provide summaries of each of the twenty four books of The Iliad, notes on characters and the Greek Gods, a character map and a general discussion at the end.

Click here to visit the main page for this special reading project.

(Please Note: This is an ongoing project and not all pages are complete)

Project Progress

Book 16 of 24 Books

The Golden Age of Crime Fiction

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The Golden Age of Crime Project is an ongoing commitment to read and review books from the Golden era of Crime Fiction.

The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of classic murder mystery novels, predominantly from the 1920s and 1930s. Well known writers of the Golden Age include Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, Ronald Knox, Anthony Berkeley and G. K. Chesterton.

But these books have roots in earlier works of detective fiction, and there are still mysteries being written today that would fit in with the ‘feel’ of the Golden Age (Anthony Horowitz is an excellent example of a modern day writer of contemporary ‘Golden Age’ mysteries).

For this special reading project I am reading as widely as possible from this era, but especially books by authors suggested by Martin Edwards' study of the period, The Golden Age of Murder.

Martin Edward's The Golden Age of Murder is an account of the Detection Club, featuring some of the most famous crime writers of the first half of the 20th Century, as well as the background to famous and obscure crime fiction from this era. This book was the initial inspiration for this project. You can read our review of this book here.

Click here to visit the main page for this special reading project.

Project Progress

This project has no fixed completion

The Count of Monte Cristo

Our second long-term Special Reading Project, now complete!

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I read Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo as a long term reading project. The book is long, over 1000 pages of small print and 118 chapters. I decided as I read, since I would not always have time to read it consistently, that I would make a chapter by chapter summary.

The novel begins in the period just before Napoleon's escape from the island of Elba. Edmond Dantes is arrested and imprisoned after he is framed as a Napoleon conspirator. This is the story of his escape, how he finds his fortune and seeks revenge on those who betrayed him.

For those interested in reading the book, or simply curious to find out more, click on the cover of the book or click here. You will have access to the full summary I wrote, character notes on the major characters, a downloadable character map I produced, as well as a quick access to my review of the book and a link to the Gutenberg Project, where you can download the book for free.

The Federalist Papers

Our first long-term Special Reading Project

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The Federalist Papers were written in 1787 to 1788 to defend the new American Constitution against its critics. They explained the Constitution and have provided future generations guidance as to how the Founding Fathers intended the Constitution to be interpreted.

The Federalist Papers, written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and America's fourth president, James Madison, cover issues of America's independence, including the need to ensure against foreign influence, as well as how the new Federal Government would operate. The Federalist Papers also deal with the separation of the powers of each branch of government, as well as government oversight, which includes the power of Congress to impeach. For these reasons, The Federalist Papers are still important documents which have been referred to in debates about the presidency of Donald Trump.

You can now read summaries and commentaries of all 85 Federalist papers here on the Reading Project.

Michael Duffy profiles some great writers of the last few centuries in a series of interviews that never happened based on things the authors actually said!

The pictures below represent places we have travelled or enjoy. In each picture there is someone who is reading. The photos represent the portability of books and the idea that they might be enjoyed almost anywhere. Click on the Google Earth Symbol to view where each photograph was taken.